Pages

Sunday, November 25, 2012

The Solemnity of Christ the King

The following is my "sermon exercise" I did yesterday in front of some of my peers at the hospital. Of course, as a Catholic laywoman I cannot preach during the Mass, but as a person in ministry, it is still important for me to learn to accurately and effectively preach the Gospel.

Today, if you couldn’t tell from the readings and the
repeated mentions of thrones and kings, is the Solemnity of Christ the King.
Very few of us have ever lived under a monarchy. When I say “king,” you
probably think of fat, old Henry the VIII and his wives or the legendary King
Arthur. You might think about King George III, the king that we revolted against
in the American Revolution. We, here in America, shook free of the monarchal
system of government over 200 years ago, but over two weeks ago we elected our
president. Now, I’m sure there are people out there mourning the election
results and there are those celebrating the results. Regardless of your
feelings about the election, today’s solemnity has something to say to you.
Namely, that in the long run it doesn’t matter who won, what matters is our
true ruler in Heaven, Christ the King.

What
does this mean? What does it mean down here below that we have a king like
Jesus Christ up high? What does that have to do with my life right now? First
of all, it serves as a reminder that we are sojourners in an alien land. Our true
home is heaven. We are not to work for worldly glory or the praise of people;
we are to work for the glory of God. As Jesus says in an earlier Gospel, where
your treasure is, that is where your heart will be also. Our values will never
match the world’s values and our deepest desires will never be met here on
Earth.

Also,
our King isn’t just an ordinary king. He doesn’t sit high on his throne placing
burdens on the people that they cannot bear. Our King loves us so much that He
stepped down from His pedestal for us, to die for us. He is willing to make the
ultimate sacrifice out of love for us. You would be hard pressed to find an
earthly king in the history of humanity that was willing to do the same,
although I guess all the truly good ones are. Our King is with us in our
struggles. He’s with you right now waiting for that test result or that surgery
to be completed. He’s with you in your pain and in your joy. He’s not on some
lofty throne somewhere in the sky looking down at us. He is sitting beside us
here on Earth.

And
finally, the last thing we can take away from today is that all of the kingdoms
of this world eventually will fall away and no one kingdom encompasses all
people. The kingdom of Jesus Christ will never fall and it is meant to
encompass people of every nation. Jesus doesn’t prefer one skin color to
another or one socio-economic bracket to another. He wants to take us all under
His wings. While the things of this world are temporary, all things good and
bad eventually come to an end, all empires eventually fall, one thing always
remains and that is the kingdom of God, of Jesus Christ. God is always there
and God will always be there. He says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the one
who is, and who was, and who is to come.” Nothing in this world can get more
permanent than that.